Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Tuesday August 10, 2010 @02:07PM
from the end-of-the-tubes dept.

necro81 writes "The NY Times is reporting that former Senator Ted Stevens was aboard a small plane with eight others that crashed in remote southwest Alaska Monday night. Some news outlets are reporting that he died, along with at least four others. Meanwhile, the North American CEO of aerospace firm EADS and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe was was also reported in the crash. Rescue crews from the Alaska Air National Guard reached the site about ten hours after the initial crash."

Pretty much every network textbook in existence uses the analogy of "pipes" when describing latency and bandwidth. "Tubes" and "pipes" are essentially the same thing, so if Stevens was wrong, then so are all the major network experts who write the textbooks. And "clogged tubes" is a pretty good analogy for congestion along a route.

Actually, if you listen to what he said, he wasn't really that far off, especially when you consider that a good portion of his audience had (and probably still has) no idea quite what the internet really is. Never understood all the flak he got for it.

It wasn't what he said, it was the way he said it, and the irony of this old, clueless man, who held an extremely important committee seat, blathering on about something he clearly didn't understand. It sounded like he was repeating an explanation some slick lobbyist had used to explain it to him, that he only half remembered. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that Ted Stevens was not a 100%, bought and paid for shill to industry, with no ethics or redeeming value. He treated congress like a smash and grab for money for his supporters. I'm sad he died in a plane crash instead of prison where he would have been if it weren't for the ineptitude of the prosecutors of his corruption investigation.

I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that Ted Stevens was not a 100%, bought and paid for shill to industry, with no ethics or redeeming value. He treated congress like a smash and grab for money for his supporters. I'm sad he died in a plane crash instead of prison where he would have been if it weren't for the ineptitude of the prosecutors of his corruption investigation.

It wasn't so much the content, as he was, in a laymans way, more or less correct.

Apart from the fact that he seemed to think that the long delay in delivering "an Internet" [email] was due to those tubes being clogged, rather than the more likely explanation of a mail server being overloaded or offline.

Is not an overloaded server (or router, or any other stop along the way) a "clog"?

I still don't see how he was ever that far off.

Young people just made fun of him because he was old, basically, and he didn't have a technical understanding of the internet (then again, most who think they do are wrong on most of what they think they know).

Is not an overloaded server (or router, or any other stop along the way) a "clog"?

Only in the same sense in which the Grand Canyon is a "ditch".

I still don't see how he was ever that far off.

Young people just made fun of him because he was old, basically, and he didn't have a technical understanding of the internet (then again, most who think they do are wrong on most of what they think they know).

No, because use used his misunderstanding in an attempt to end network neutrality. He actually argued that the reason his "internet" got delayed was because non-email traffic for which "content providers" weren't getting paid, had somehow deprioritized his email, and that if only Google had to pay royalties to his telco-lobby bankrollers (as opposed to, say, transit/peering that they already pay), his emails would go through faster.

The fact that the Internet really is just series of tubes (a stupid network [hyperorg.com]) is a feature, not a bug. Stevens argued the other way around: he wanted an Internet made of "smart" connections, where there are no MP3s or videos clogging the tubes other than from the telco/cableco's ringtone/pay-per-view services.

His speech was along the lines of alleging his local network outage could only be prevented if all that user-generated-but-nobody-pays-royalties traffic (P2P, Youtube videos, etc) could be removed and replaced with content-provider-generated/subsidized content. That's bullshit. Your 8MB DSL link is going to be just as saturated if everyone in your house is watching the "AT&T's Funniest Home Videos Channel In HD!", or if everyone's watching Youtube videos. (And conversely, the presence of a billion botnets and spammers still doesn't stop Youtube from coming through, because Google pays its ISPs for peering/transit, and built up enough fiber to actually provide its viewers with all those bits. Only thing is, AT&T, having not built up enough fiber to host something like Youtube, wants a cut of every viewing, especially when it's trying to rebrand itself as a content provider.)

We didn't make fun of him because he was stupid. We made fun of him because he was wrong.

I don't think anyone of us would have cared if he hadn't been the chair of the committee that was in charge of telecom regulation.

If my grandpa had that understanding of the internet, it'd be fine. For Ted Stevens to have it? Fuck no! It was a big part of his job, and the best he can come up with is "a series of tubes"? I don't think so!

At our local children's museum, there's a model of the Internet as a series of transparent, flexible tubes. Each packet is represented by a ball, and they each take a different path to the destination. I have no idea why he gets so much flak for his tubes explanation of the Internet. He deserves flak for his infamous bridge to nowhere and felony indictment.

I mean for one, the "series of tubes" thing just sounds funny. It was not an eloquent way of putting it. Second, it is a rather large oversimplification. Ok I'm fine with it for children since you are trying to really simplify it, but it is a bad way to describe it overall. The relationship between my plumbing (an actual series of tubes) and my net connection is tenuous at best despite the Internet connection begin called a "pipe" in some contexts.

However the biggest reason was because from the entire explanation, it is clear he has no idea what the fuck he is talking about. What he said was:

"Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got...an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

It is clear the man understands nothing about the net. More or less he's bitching that has staffer sent him an e-mail which he calls "an Internet", and it was delayed for some reason. That he blames on people watching movies online. The amount of shit incorrect about that is just legendary.

Had it been said as part of a competent explanation, it probably wouldn't have been picked up on. However his halting, improper explanation made it seem that he probably really did think of the Internet as being just like a sewer system, which is not at all correct.

Had it been said as part of a competent explanation, it probably wouldn't have been picked up on. However his halting, improper explanation made it seem that he probably really did think of the Internet as being just like a sewer system, which is not at all correct.

That and the fact that his rambling was his justification to block the addition of net neutrality language to the telecom bill that he himself had 'authored' as head of the commerce committee. By demonstrating his rather poor grasp of the workings of the internet he also demonstrated that he really wasn't qualified to have so much control over it.

Well that's just what people remembered most. His whole speech showed a clear misunderstanding of either English or how the internet works. Here are some other gems from that speech:

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

Now, he is either trying to severely dumb things down to...bring things down to the level of education of the senate... or he is really butchering the English language, or he has no understanding of what he is talking about. Occam's razor points to him just not understanding. There are no "clogs" on the internet, except in the case of broadcast storms on localized networks or otherwise sophisticated and abnormal edge cases. The flow through the pipes is the same, how much stuff you get to throw through that pipe might be reduced if many others are, but its not clogged. The analogy doesn't make sense. If he went with a truck and highway metaphor, where each truck is a packet, that *might* have actually been closer.

And he might get a pass if he was my uncle trying to explain the internet to my family at a BBQ. But he is a senator addressing the senate, and with it the entire nation. The potential ramifications of spewing incorrect information to 100 of the most powerful men in the entire world are enormous. Can you imagine if your CEO got in front of the company's shareholders and just started spewing nonsense like this about how his company operates? He would be out the door the next day. The stakes are way higher when you address the senate.

Worse than that, I have news for people. The internet is about 90% tubes. Little plastic tubes, with copper wire running through them for the most part. Also, some slightly larger tubes with more glass tubes inside. The other 10% is mostly computers.

Pretty much every network textbook in existence uses the analogy of "pipes" when describing latency and bandwidth. "Tubes" and "pipes" are essentially the same thing, so if Stevens was wrong, then so are all the major network experts who write the textbooks. And "clogged tubes" is a pretty good analogy for congestion along a route.

Right. If this is how an average pay person, even a senator views the internet its not the end of the world.

Part of his comments included this sentence: "I just the other day got...an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday." refering to an email message. Its ok for *MY* grand father to say he received an "internet", or to have a view of the internet strictly in terms of tubes.

However, its not really forgivable that the man responsible for authoring legislation like the "Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006" to not be clear on the difference between an email and the internet to have such a lay understanding of the subject.

I'm normally one to defend people who take inscrutable flak for using perfectly valid terms, but...

1) When people mock him, the "series of tubes" thing is just to refer to the whole speech, which had some howlers. Very few are criticizing him for the analogy to tubes specifically.

2) Mail sent by his staff would have come from the same intranet, and so couldn't be explained by general overloading of the internet, which would make a big difference for his point (to the extent he had one).

3) In giving his explanation, he obviously was trying to pass of a lobbyist pep talk as genuine understanding, which is pretty dangerous for someone having such authority over the internet and attempting to pass legislation thereon. It revealed that, "Whoa, is this their understanding on *other* issues?" See 1)

It is American custom to regret needless death, even if you don't agree with, or like, the victims.

... as long as they're famous and/or rich. Otherwise, whatever.

That's not true. Non-famous rich people don't get that treatment.

Furthermore, the famous people being overly honored is a function more of how many people have heard of famous people than celebrity worship. If a non-famous co-worker dies, we eulogize them. It's not national news for obvious reasons.

Not to defend American culture on slashdot or anything that would risk making me stand out from the cool kids, but I think this also goes on pretty much everywhere. People's natural tenancy is to honor the dead and remember them fondly. Famous people are by definition people that a lot of people know about, so when they die, of course there's more people doing that.

Aside from a few universally hated people like Hitler, we have a tendency to focus on the good in people when they die. I think there are a couple of reasons why we do this:

a.) Except in the case of the universally reviled, we tend to think of people when they die as more...human, and not so much as whatever caricature of them we've built up in our minds over the years. Death is the ultimate equalizer. When someone dies, it's easier to think of them as having been just like us, with all of our foibles and vulnerabilities, and it becomes easier to forget, or at least minimize, their bad qualities.
b.) In most cases, people leave behind mourners when they die, and it's seen as in poor taste to be overtly negative about the dead and risk causing further grief to people who are already grieving. This is probably related to the whole idea of the sins of the father not being visited upon the sons.
c.) In the immediate aftermath of a person's death, criticism of them really serves no purpose. After all, they're dead, and are therefore presumably not actively doing anything to harm anyone anymore. After the initial shock wears off, and we begin to think of that person's place in history, we tend to start criticizing again. However, even then the criticism tends to be more tempered than it likely was when they were alive.

Having said all that, I think people do tend to get unnecessarily sensitive about these things after the death of a public figure. It's to be expected after a death of this type that people are going to make jokes and snide remarks, especially while cloaked in the pseudo (or sometimes total) anonymity of the Internet. Criticizing that or seeking to stop it in any way is pointless.

Aside from a few universally hated people like Hitler, we have a tendency to focus on the good in people when they die....

Actually one of the biggest eye-opening shocks of my life was in the 70's when I was an American student in Germany living with a German family. They were quite adamant that Hitler had done Germany a lot of good throughout much of of his tenure as their leader.
Remember these were people who had lived through the economic nightmare there after WW-I, then the 30's and 40's. They said Hitler had brought them out of the economic mess, put food on their table, made jobs available etc. etc. And all that is true for the most part.
We tend to focus on the seriously bad things he did... like I said it was a massive shock to me at that time, having been taught only a subset of the entire set of historical events.
Do NOT view this as me agreeing with their viewpoint, merely pointing out that it existed, and in some sad forms still exists.

Think of it this way: 1) they are dead, so they can no longer continue their idiotic policies. Therefore, there is no use continuing to sling vitriol. Bury your animosity with the dead. 2) because like them or not, they are people, and therefore they have family members that (presumably) love them despite their flaws. Out of respect for their survivors, put on a kind face.

IMHO, this is a good thing, and brings out the best in people. I really don't see the reason why people have to continue to hate so much on someone simply because they disagreed with their political stance while they were alive.*

*Yes, I live in Alaska, and no, I did not vote for Stevens since...I don't remember how long, but it's been well over a decade. I felt he was corrupt and needed to be thrown out, but (too) many of my peers disagreed with me until the last election.

Heh really? You don't understand why? Because once they are dead, they can do nothing. All the people who supported the guy are now on 'your side', even if just for a moment, and the dead guy himself can't stand in your way. Just like how all the Republicans honor Reagan while pushing an agenda that doesn't look anything like what Reagan would have done. You can say anything you want, and he can't object. It's the perfect opportunity for demagoguery.

Perhaps because, though he was a dipshit, he was a) human and b) may not have actively revelled in his own evil. So it seems kind of odd to be all happy that he's dead. Personally, I won't miss the guy, but I'm also not really going to say 'Good riddance.' Something about the latter is a little cold blooded for my tastes.

[In April], a new team of prosecutors asked Sullivan to dismiss Stevens's conviction and indictment after uncovering notes from previous prosecutors that contradicted testimony from a key government witness.
Paul O'Brien, one of the new Justice lawyers, told Sullivan that "we deeply, deeply regret that this occurred." Laura Sweeney, a department spokeswoman, said officials will review Sullivan's order "and will continue to cooperate with the court on this matter."
During and after the trial, the judge reprimanded prosecutors several times for how they had handled evidence and witnesses. He chastised prosecutors for allowing a witness to leave town. He grew more agitated when he learned that prosecutors had introduced evidence they knew was inaccurate, and he scolded them for not turning over exculpatory material to the defense.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said... after seeing so much "shocking and disturbing" behavior by the government "In 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I have seen in this case."

Pretty much he was railroaded by an overzealous and lying Bush Administration US Justice Department (and corrected by the Obama Administration, nice irony). Righty or Lefty, everyone deserves a fair trial. Get that into your overly-partisan thick head. You on the left are as bad as the rightist when it comes to hating your political enemies so much you'd screw up our justice system to punish them whether they deserved it or not -- and lying and smearing people in public without regard to the truth. Liars like you, left and right, are so damnably stupid they think they can get away with it. There was serious prosecutor misconduct, not "baseless rumor" - nice try but you lied and are busted. See the part in italics in the quote above? It was the federal prosecutors (under Holder/Obama) that asked the conviction to be overturned (RTFA linked), not the judge. Care to retract your post as the lie that it is?

And don't forget the undisputed fact that he did receive unreported income from a political supporter. The only things disputed are whether the income influenced (or was given to influence) Ted Steven's votes and whether he was aware that there was a funneling of money to him, as he didn't report it correctly on disclosure forms or IRS forms and such. But there was nobody that I saw (aside from some entertainers who run talk shows or opinion pieces on TV who people confuse with news reporters) that actual

The guy died in a plane paid for by Alaska's largest telcom, who he had helped to defeat a net neutrality amendment when he was a Senator (this was his famous "series of tubes" speech, whose nasty purpose people tend to forget because of its general silliness). And, had he have lived, he would have *continued* to help them fight net neutrality. So it's not like his evil crap was done with.

One way or another, he would have been doing bad shit until the day he died (and he was). So with someone like that, I don't think it's mean-spirited to wish that day comes sooner rather than later.

In addition, he was in the company of Jim Morhard, a "connections" man from Alexandria. This person openly sells his influence on Capitol Hill to all with money (enough money, I should say). His company website is a pretty interesting read.

Pay close attention to the wording of the "Why choose Morhard & Associates to serve you?" section at the bottom. Scary shit when you think about it. This is a private entity claiming "We know how to analyze legislation and understand its impacts. We are expert drafters of legislation." Since when do private entities draft legislation?

This guy and Stevie were backroom-dealers if there ever was one, and GCI was footing the "expenses".

FTFA:
"A rescue crew from the Alaska Air National Guard and the United States Coast Guard arrived on the scene more than 12 hours after the crash, hampered by rain, high winds and heavy fog in an area of mountains and lakes north of Bristol Bay. "

"Ten airplanes flying across that, that state, and what happens to your own airplane? I just the other day got...an airplane was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things flying commercially."

"They want to deliver vast amounts of people over the state. And again, the airspace is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big duck. It's a series of tubesocks. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your flight in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that airspace enormous amounts of airplanes, enormous amounts of airplanes."

.. to make friends and memories. Its a shame he and the other unlucky ones aboard that plane didn't have a chance to say a few words to their loved ones before their end.
May their souls rest in peace.
Condolences to their families.

Alaska, due to the massive standard deviation in topograpy, frequently abysmal weather, and the necessity of covering its vast area for which there is almost no infrastructure, is the nation's (and possibly the world's) epicenter for aircraft incidents, per capita (California has more total from 2008 to 2010, Texas just barely fewer, but neither comes close per citizen).

Throw in the sort of personality that likes living and flying airplanes there, and you get more excursions into any envelope of safety. Eve

If only he had traveled by tube!
But really, as much as I dislike the guy, and as poor at his job as he was, if he's really dead then these comments are going to be in poor taste and my heart goes out to his family. Hopefully everyone is ok.

Oh yes, because the greatness of a politician is the quantity of porking they perform...
Pork you motherporker, funneling money to your state just so it lands in the hands of your friends is called corruption. Building hoover dam, a benefit to society and a source of clean energy for generations. Building a bridge to nowhere benefits a construction company for a few months. Know the difference. As for dearly departed Ted, I imagine he had a little for column A, and a little for column B.

Much more interesting (to me) is that the aircraft used (a DeHavilland DHC-3T [controller.com]) is a flying boat built in 1953. Looks great for fishing trips, but they were taking it through dangerous mountains - known for doing unmentionable things to aircraft - during a severe storm. Hands up all those who would want to be in the aircraft shown in the posting under those kinds of conditions. I feel certain that former Sen. Stevens has been in enough light aircraft (Alaska is big and the roads aren't) to know what you can and cannot do. What I cannot fathom is why he, with his knowledge and experience, would take that kind of a pointless, stupid risk.

As for O'Keefe, for all his time at NASA, I doubt he's enough time in aircraft of this vintage and size to know the risks. Being head honcho of an aerospace organization doesn't endow you with the kind of skill and knowledge needed. Nonetheless, he too should have been wary of flying in those conditions in an antique.

Much more interesting (to me) is that the aircraft used (a DeHavilland DHC-3T [controller.com]) is a flying boat built in 1953. Looks great for fishing trips, but they were taking it through dangerous mountains - known for doing unmentionable things to aircraft - during a severe storm. Hands up all those who would want to be in the aircraft shown in the posting under those kinds of conditions.

I would prefer not to be flying any aircraft in those conditions, but if one must be chosen, a DHC-3 isn't bad. A DHC-6 would be better, thanks to the spare engine, but they have nearly identical performance and the DHC-6 is known as one of the best aircraft in the world in severe conditions. When things are too dangerous for the type of plane that you're implying would be safer (I assume you mean big fancy jets), they turn to Twin Otters. They operate in Antarctica, for instance.

GCI is a large (the largest?) local cable/wireless/internet provider in Alaska.

GCI is the largest cable provider, but they are definitely not the largest wireless/internet/telecom company. That would be ACS.

Your lobbying idea is ludicrous though, GCI serves about 300,000 people, and being a local company, have very little stake in national politics. They might lobby the state senate (in fact they almost certainly do), but it's a far cry from anything national, and using Stevens for the state senate is a bit of overkill.

The more likely explanation is that, after 50 years as a major name in politics, Stevens has made a number of big-name (locally speaking) friends himself - enough that a high level GCI manager would send him out to a private lodge from time to time when he wanted.

I suppose GCI was grooming the CEO of EADS North America (a much larger company, btw) for a lobbying gig too, eh? Maybe GCI is going to be going into space sometime, eh?

I guess this says a lot about me, but I'm afraid it says even more about the overall state of our country.

Not really. Business owners are the same as they have always been, there are a few bad ones but a lot of decent executives simply trying to make the company work better.

Basically you have been brainwashed into thinking any executive is evil, even though you never heard the name of a single company. You have started to wake up, think long and hard about why your first thought was that it was good any g

And just so this isn't a "me too!" post, I found this tidbit from the article somewhat irritating:

“Last night, Alaska lost a hero and I lost a dear friend,” Senator Murkowski said in a statement. “The thought of losing Ted Stevens, a man who was known to business and community leaders, Native chiefs and everyday Alaskans as ‘Uncle Ted,’ is too difficult to fathom. His entire life was dedicated to public service — from his days as a pilot in World War II to his four decades of service in the United States Senate. He truly was the greatest of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ ”

The guy was a WWII pilot? Knowing that, I could care less about his politics and anything else he has done. The man bravely served his country, and for this he deserves some respect. While I'm not surprised, it is pretty appalling to read some of these responses. I would prefer to maintain the life of one single WWII pilot over the entire collection of everyday assholes found in this thread.

Civility has long since gone down the tubes, as so
many comments here demonstrate. A guy makes an analogy
that isn't entirely congruent with the more popular analogy. Somebody
with a job that encompasses interacting with people from
every walk of life is criticised for failing to be an expert
in our particular walk of life. His opinions were, I assume,
not in line with the majority of Slashdotters regarding some
issue pertaining to the Internet. Do we even know what his
opinions are, or do we just know that he was a stupid poo-poo
head becasue all the other kindergardners called him that?

I feel ashamed to have anything to do with this site on a day like today.

His "series of tubes" diatribe was funny, highly entertaining stuff in and of itself. If he was a late night comedian, I doubt many if any slashdotters would be venting "good riddance" at this man's death. But the context of his series of tubes diatribe was something else. He was making law, law applicable to an arena most slashdotters hold dear, and he demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the subject matter, while demonstrating that he was supporting a position he was paid to support, without regard of how that would impact the People. That made him more than a silly old man... that put him in a very dishonorable position.

Personally, I think that paled in comparison to his behavior during the hearings on record high gas prices, where he nastily shot down colleagues who wanted the record-profit-making oil company executives to be under oath. You can find the written quotes [cnn.com] (near end of article) easily enough, but if you can find video, you will see that his attitude indicated he was firmly siding with those executives over any public interest, before the hearings even began.

This man occupied a job "for the people" while feeling far more beholden to his corporate sponsors. It was obvious from so many incidents in which he was involved... from his own words and deeds, let alone his funding. I'm not thrilled at his death, but I certainly don't lament it. I'm not thrilled because he was just one obvious example, in a system that entirely favors and rewards the kind of misdeeds he performed. That system is still in place. Those hating the player are only behaving shamefully if they're failing to hate the game in this case. Those in the wrong are those who think Stevens was especially bad in any way other than getting his behavior more airtime in the media (because he was funny about it). I only wish all senators, etc... were as entertaining, so that more of their behavior would be spotlighted in the same way.

Just remember, you're an asshole and will probably always be an asshole. Maybe someday you will also be old, and there will be things that are new to you, and hopefully the new generation will heap the same kinds of derision on you.

Just remember, you're an asshole and will probably always be an asshole. Maybe someday you will also be old, and there will be things that are new to you, and hopefully the new generation will heap the same kinds of derision on you.

We can only hope that the next generation will not allow us to hold office so long we become totally detached from the people we represent.. That is, if we can get the last generation out of office by then.

Even ALL CAPS can't make that vile criminal worthy of any more dignity in death than he was in life.

We have never had the mythical world of respect that you allude to, and we never will. For reference, read the newspapers of 50 years ago. Or 100. Or 150. Or 200. The "uncivil" argument is a canard sometimes thrown around by hypocrites to fool idiots.

I'll take an honest man over a polite one any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

In comparison with you, good sir, who actually tried to paint a critical slash

So what if he was? You say that they should be revered, not punished. So why not "adolf"? At what level of evil do you draw the line? And since you imply that line exists because of the differentiation between him and someone else, how can you be sure that he isn't on the other side of that line?

so listen up, asshole: you respect the recently departed

They are dead. What do they care? I met the man. I shook his hand. I had a conversation with his wife. What right t

hating his politics should not be about forgetting your humanity. then perhaps you are worse than whatever you ridicule about ted stevens

I disagree. Do you show the same regard for people like Hitler? Mussolini? Stalin? No? Where's YOUR humanity? Granted Ted Stevens isn't as close to evil as those people, but he certainly did his part to increase the idiocy of congress as a whole.

1) Most people have no positive connection to this guy, at all. They don't know him and don't care about him. Don't pretend like you care about every person who dies, if you did you'd be in a continual state of massive grief. To the extent he touched their lives it was to try and restrict Internet access and through criminally misappropriating tax dollars. Why the hell should they feel bad about his passing? Yes, he was a person and I'm sure had redeeming qualities and people who cared about him. Nobody here knew him in that context.

2) Humour is a great way of coping with disaster. If you can't see that, it is because you are too damn uptight. Joking about things is a way of integrating bad things in to life and moving on.

So knock it the fuck off. I hate the veneration of the dead, where suddenly because someone has died nobody can make fun of them anymore, nobody can talk about them as a real human anymore. They have to be sainted, remembered in an idealized fashion. I hope when I die, if there's anyone around that gives a shit, they talk about me as I really was, remember my flaws, have some laughs at my expense. I hope they don't turn me in to some saint I'm not and refuse to say anything about me that isn't praise. It isn't that way when I'm alive, when I actually care what is being said about me, why should it change when I die?